BBC Trust approves final plan for DRMed program downloads

After extensive consultation with the public and media companies, the BBC …

Back in February, Ars reported on the decision by the BBC to give its viewers download access to what they term "catch up" programming. At the time, a set of rules governing the programs and access rights had been proposed and were open to public and industry comment. Final rules have now been announced by the BBC Trust, although the impact of some decisions will be evaluated on a regular basis.

As our earlier coverage indicated, providing download access to BBC content is dizzyingly complex. The BBC is supported by license fees assessed on everyone in the country that owns a TV, making it akin to a public service. But the BBC itself relies on private media companies to provide much of its material. Many BBC broadcasts are licensed to other countries and are sold on DVD. Balancing all of the commercial and private concerns is the BBC Trust, which also considers the general media market in order to ensure that the public programming does not preclude competitive private broadcasters from entering the market.

The plan under debate was designed to allow a TiVo-less equivalent to time shifting: viewers that missed a program could, for up to a week after its broadcast, download the episode they missed for free. Downloads would be subject to DRM to prevent copying and would self-destruct after a set period of time. In addition, when a program came to a close, series "stacks" would be provided that included all of the episodes. Other rules would be applied to radio broadcasts.

Over 10,000 comments later, the proposed rules largely remain intact. For audio-only content, industry came out pretty well: book readings would not be made available in order to avoid competition with the audible book market, and classical music would be excluded in part because it was considered to be in a "precarious state." Classical programs would continue to be made available as catch-up listening via streaming audio.

When it came to video content, the situation was far more complex. Although no specific question addressed it, the Trust came away with the impression that, while industry considered DRM a given, the vast majority of the public was opposed to it. Despite pleas by the industry, the Trust refused to reduce the 30-day window for viewing downloads (which had been reduced from an initially-proposed 13 weeks).

The trust also resisted industry calls to completely eliminate downloads of series stacks in light of overwhelming public support for this feature. But the feature was limited to 15 percent of total broadcast content, and conditions were defined for inclusion: "Stackable series are those with a distinct run, with a beginning and end, and a narrative arc or those with exceptionally high impact." Given the potential ambiguity in this definition, they promised to revisit the topic in two years to see how this feature was working.

The other issue of contention was in the DRM being used: Windows Media, which necessarily creates a platform restriction. That restriction remains, despite being overwhelmingly unpopular: nearly 90 percent of respondents favored neutrality. "Such was the strength of feeling that respondents did not appreciate, or did not consider it relevant, that the Trust was proposing that the BBC achieves platform neutrality within a specified period," read the report. "Any period of excluding other operating systems was apparently considered unacceptable by our public respondents."

The Trust considered arguments that it was possible to provide an open license for content while retaining its commercial value but decided that they "regard the business models for this approach to be unclear at present." Initially, they planned to set a twoyear deadline for platform-neutral DRM but have backed off in response to BBC management, which suggested a limit would poison their ongoing negotiations with Adobe, Apple, and Real. Instead, audits of progress towards platform neutrality will occur every six months going forward. It's not clear whether the negotiations will ultimately result in a single, cross-platform DRM, or whether the BBC will ultimately offer downloads in multiple formats. But for now, DRMed WMV stays.

One interesting tidbit from the report was the lack of interest in parental controls. Only about a quarter of respondents rated a content control system important. Whether this truly reflects disinterest or the age of those taking the survey isn't clear.

Overall, the final report is mostly notable for being fairly reasonable. It tries to balance commercial and public concerns, and it emphasizes that the importance of providing the viewers with this service overrides lingering concerns about several of its features. The continued evaluations planned for some of the features suggest that fine-tuning of the service should occur rapidly, leaving the BBC with what might be a model system for other nations that have a combination of public and private broadcasting.